Tea at Trianon: Power Plays

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Power Plays

Henri IV en famille

At the Louvre. From Blouin Art Info:

Louvre Museum, Paris presents “Power Plays,” a group exhibition that focuses on the connection between art and political power. Art, in the hands of patrons, is rendered as a propaganda tool. But it can also transform into a vehicle for protest and subverting the established order. Spanning the period from antiquity up to the present, 40 works from the Musée du Louvre, the Musée National du Château de Pau, the Château de Versailles, and the Musée des Beaux-arts de la Ville de Paris illustrate the evolution of the codes behind the representation of political power.

The exhibition is divided into four sections. The first room, Princely Roles, presents the king’s functions as portrayed through different artistic media. Notable examples are Philippe de Champaigne’s “Louis XIII,” Léonard Limosin’s enamel “Crucifixion Altarpiece,” and the “Triad of Osorkon II” from ancient Egypt. The second room, Legitimacy through Persuasion, focuses on the emblematic figure of Henri IV. It features sculptures by Barthélémy Prieur and François-Joseph Bosio, and paintings by Frans Pourbus the Younger, Ingres, and others. The theme of the third room, The Antique Model, is the equestrian statue, among them the Barberini Ivory leaf, a bronze of Charles the Bald, and François Girardon’s “Louis XIV.” In the fourth room, The Insignia of Power, majestic portraits of monarchs, including Antoine-François Callet’s “Louis XVI,” François Gérard’s “Napoleon I,” and Franz-Xaver Winterhalter’s “Louis Philippe,” are accompanied by the regalia used during the coronation of the kings of France. This final section also highlights the dramatic historical and representational changes that followed the French Revolution. (Read more.)